What doesn't kill you
by GGMaybeOneDay
Summary: Starts at the end of "Partings" in season 6 - what happens after Lorelai sleeps with Chris while heartbroken over Luke? Forget season 7 ever happened. This is the way it should have gone.


**Thanks for reading! This story takes off in season 6, at the end of episode 22 "Partings" when Lorelai knocks on Christopher's door and wakes up in his bed the next morning. It goes back to earlier that night and what happened between them, then goes forth in the story basically rewriting that horrible season 7. L &L, Rory plays a smaller part.**

At some point the memory between getting in her Jeep and driving the quiet route to Christopher's and being awoken by the sound of Gigi off to school had faded. She was in Chris' bed, naked, with the feeling of dread and regret ploughing over her like a migraine.

As he shut the bedroom door and climbed back into bed, the image of turning her back on Luke came rushing back.

 _"I can't just jump like this,"_ he had said.

" _Well, I'm sorry to hear that,"_ she had replied, before giving up and leaving.

There had been a million things she wanted to say, but she had censored herself, again, as usual. When did she become so mousy? When did she give up that part of herself with Luke – the woman who said whatever was on her mind? Was that not why he had fallen in love with her in the first place?

Chris stroked her arm, bringing her back into the moment she so wished was not reality.

"Chris…"

"Hey," he grunted sleepily. She reached for his hand and removed it from her side, beginning to slide out of the bed. "Where are you going?"

"I have to go," she said quietly, hoping he would just fall back asleep. But instead he sat up.

"Last night… that was incredible, Lor."

"I was upset," she said while looking for her dress on the ground, covering her naked self modestly.

"The bottle of tequila seemed to help with that," he smiled affectionately.

Lorelai pulled the straps of her blue dress over her shoulders and pushed her frazzled hair back behind her ears. As she looked at Chris sitting smugly in bed, each moment from the night before slowly faded back into picture.

Her knocking at his door: " _I'm having a really bad night, and, um... I just don't want to be alone. Okay?"_

 _"Yeah, uh, come on in."_

She had closed the door behind herself, arms crossed tightly in front of her as Chris' concerned face searched her's.

" _Lor?"_

 _"I'm not getting married anymore. Luke doesn't want to marry me anymore,"_ the tears started gushing and there was no way to stop them.

" _Come here…"_ Chris slid one arm behind her back and led her toward the living room, sitting her down on the couch next to him.

" _I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to come here like this. I just – I just couldn't go back to our bedroom and sit there all night, crying."_

 _"That would have been very 'Girl Interrupted' of you,"_ Chris smiled.

" _Without the pills…"_

 _"Without the pills."_

 _"Although a Xanax wouldn't be too bad right now,"_ Lorelai half-giggled and cried.

" _I've got liquor, and coffee. And coffee-flavoured liquor. Pick your poison,"_ Chris rubbed Lorelai's thigh and got up, walking toward the kitchen.

" _Thank you,"_ she sniffed, trying desperately to clear her face and stop the tears.

About an hour later, two empty shot glasses sat on the coffee table and a half-empty bottle of tequila lay nestled in the crook of Lorelai's elbow.

" _I don't think I can drink anymore. Gigi's asleep down the hall,"_ Chris lay back on the couch and shut his eyes.

" _You're a responsible parent,"_ Lorelai smirked. The dried tears on her cheeks hadn't yet been washed off and her swollen eyes mixed with the numbing effect of tequila created a warm sheath around her face.

" _I had a good role model."_

 _"Yeah, Michael Lohan's great,"_ she half-smiled with closed eyes.

 _"Who?"_

 _"Watch TMZ, babe."_

Chris turned his head toward Lorelai nestled into the couch next to him, probably too close than necessary, _"I'd rather watch you."_

She let out a single laugh. Her bare thigh draped across the coffee table, her dress was pushed a little too high up, but she was too drunk to notice or care.

Feeling the sensation of Chris' eyes on her, she turned toward him and opened hers, their faces just inches apart.

The pause of silence was too much to bear.

" _I should go,"_ she said without moving an inch.

" _Where are you going to go?"_ he whispered.

" _I'll sleep in my car."_

 _"You will not,"_ Chris' fingers reached out toward Lorelai's hand lying on the couch between them. He softly circled her palm with one finger until her lips curved into the slightest smile and her eyes closed in a drunken haze.

He took the neck of the bottle next to her and slid it onto the coffee table.

She looked finally calm, finally like the Lorelai he'd seen earlier that evening.

" _Luke's crazy if he doesn't want to marry you. You are so much – "_

 _"Chris, please. Can we not talk about this right now?"_ Her eyes opened and a pleading look came across her face. Chris couldn't decipher exactly what she was pleading for – for him to be quiet, or for something else.

She felt next to nothing, except an unwillingness to think about anything not immediately imminent. Not the job she had to go to the next day, not the news she'd have to give her kid, her parents, her town. Not the dread she'd have to face every morning walking by Luke's and wondering if he'd see her.

She felt Chris' hand reach behind her neck and push a strand of hair away from her face. His fingers brushed down below her chin and slowly inched across the exposed skin above her dress' neckline. It was the kind of touch she'd spent months desiring from Luke, but he'd refused to spend the time on the sweet stuff he had used to do at the beginning of their relationship.

His distraction with April meant more nights sleeping side by side, backs turned, and less nights face to face whispering about their days and their plans.

Her hand reached up and covered his, her thumb brushing back and forth against the back of his hand.

 _"Do you feel better now?"_ he asked.

As his other hand reached for the paler part of her exposed thigh, she gave in.

" _I think I will soon…"_

Chris moved his hand up to her cheek as her hand slid down his forearm, their bodies closer than they'd been in years, not since that night at the Inn before Sookie's wedding.

She sighed one last time before Chris' hand reached a pivotal point up her leg and the tension was too much to bear. Her lips pressed against his, at first delicately, and then not so much.

They parted and Lorelai tilted her chin down, her lips out of reach from Chris.

 _"Lor."_

 _"Just give me a second,"_ she said. A million things were racing through her head shouting at her, ringing alarm bells. A pang of guilt nudged its way to her stomach – or maybe it was the tequila. _Luke_ , she thought. But she and Luke were over, they had to be.

Chris stroked her leg up and down, _"We don't have to do this…"_

Lorelai lifted her chin back up to his and pressed another kiss on his lips.

 _"… if you don't want – "_

She deepened the kiss and broke away panting.

 _"I want."_

With her permission, Chris took her waist and pulled her closer to him on the couch. Her leg swept over his knee and her hands found themselves in his soft hair. Chris' memorable scent and the feeling of his body next to hers once again, after all these years, was all too comforting.

Hours later, standing in front of Chris, watching him give her bedroom eyes, the urge to vomit pressed on the back of her throat.

"I have to go, Chris."

"But Lor, sit down a minute."

"What do you want me to say?" she said a little too angrily. She couldn't analyze what they did, not at this hour, in this bedroom, or with this man.

"You always have something to say. I don't need to go downstairs and start playing 'In Your Eyes' out of a boombox, do I?"

"I have a lot of things to say at this very moment but believe me you don't want to hear them."

"Try me."

Lorelai sat down on the foot of the bed and sighed. She put her hands over her face.

"I don't know Chris. I woke up this morning full of regret. I came here, I don't know why, but I came here I guess looking for something I shouldn't have been looking for. Or I shouldn't have needed. I wasn't thinking about anything because everything was just too overwhelming. And then you. You, with your hands and your tequila and your listening – "

"I am a good listener."

Lorelai quietened her voice, almost to a whisper, "The person I would have normally gone to happened to be the person who chose not to be in my life anymore last night."

"OK, so it was a mistake," Chris sat up out of bed and walked to Lorelai, standing in front of her knees. He extended a hand out to her.

"A big mistake. A colossal mistake," she took his hand and stood, placing her palm on his chest gently pushing him away.

"Monica Lewinsky-level mistake?" he smiled.

"Ah, no. Bill Clinton-level mistake," she walked toward the door.

"You're not going to keep that dress for posterity are you now?"

Standing in the doorway, Lorelai looked at Christopher, apologetically. Of course she wasn't thinking of how he felt about all of this, there was literally no room for that in her brain that felt like it was shrinking with every passing second.

But Chris had always understood that the two of them came into and out of each other's lives, probably more understanding than she had ever been. She thought back to the day at the Inn when he learned he was about to be a father again, and how crushed she'd been. He was there and then he wasn't. With them, it was just the way it went.

"Christopher. Thank you for last night. I'm sorry you got in the crosshairs of my cargo plane of emotional baggage."

"I'll fly on that jet any day, you know that Lorelai."

"I do."


End file.
